Capitalist

During the entire time he concurrently held the agriculture portfolio, President Marcos has not made a dent on the policy architecture that brought us only failure. Finally, he has handed over control of the vital Department of Agriculture (DA) to someone else.

Little is known about Francis Tiu Laurel’s thinking about the state of our agriculture and fisheries. He has yet to make a comprehensive statement of his plans.

Much of the media reporting about the new Secretary of Agriculture focused on his being a close friend of the President, a major campaign contributor and, by the way, a successful businessman. None of those attributes automatically translates into redemption for the nation’s food supply.

Our agriculture and fisheries are in dire straits. We are not producing enough to feed our people. Our costs are way too high and the inaccessibility of food prices is a major source of poverty.

Climate change and overfishing threatens our aquaculture. There will not be enough bounty from the seas that surround us to supply what we need. Our small fishermen are catching less and less and our fishing fleets are operating further and further away from the archipelago.

There should be reason to be hopeful, however, that new thinking might finally infiltrate our agriculture policy architecture. Laurel, after all, is not cut from the same bureaucratic cloth as his predecessors.

For too long, the DA has functioned largely as arbiter of state subsidies to subsistence farmers and fishermen. The agency has not been the font of new ideas about how we can produce our food better and cheaper. It was never the force for change and reinvention that it urgently needs to be.

Laurel is a capitalist. That should be a good thing. He understands the value of investing and technological infusion to rapidly improving our food production.

Lately, the only innovations of note in our agriculture were introduced by tycoons who had to fight bureaucrats to bring improvements to the way we do things. Among these are: the large pig farms of the Lucio Tan group, the mega chicken farms recently embarked on by San Miguel Corporation and the vertical farms as well as dairy production ventured into by Metro Pacific. All of these required large investments as well as vertical integration to ensure they will be successful businesses.

None of these innovative investments in our food production were in any strategic plan produced by the DA. The agency was content giving out fertilizers and farm implements to inefficient small farms.

At the very least, the new agriculture secretary will not impede investments in our food production systems. These investments are what will save us.

Witness

If only because this family feud involves that largest bus company in the country, the continuing twists and turns of the court cases deserve watching.

The court drama began when four siblings attempted to wrest control of the Bacolod-based transport company founded in 1968 by the late Ricardo B. Yanson Sr. from the founder’s widow and two other siblings. The matriarch, Olivia Villaflores Yanson, Leo Rey Yanson and Ginette Yanson Dumancas successfully fought off the takeover attempt.

As a result of cases filed by the matriarch, arrest warrants were issued against the four siblings (Yanson 4). The four have since stayed away from the country to evade the warrants.

Last August, the Bacolod RTC Branch 44 approved the petition of Olivia Yanson for probate of her last will and testament disinheriting the four. Leo Rey and Ginette have been named as heirs to the family fortune.

The Yanson 4 are contesting approval of the probate, suggesting that the matriarch is not competent enough to frame her last will and testament. The four are represented in court by one of the country’s known trial lawyers, Sigfrid Fortun. While already the lead lawyer, however, he also tried to present himself as witness against Olivia’s probate. This is rather odd.

Last month, the Bacolod City Regional Trial Court granted the motion of Ginette Yanson Dumancas to disqualify Fortun as a witness in the case. The motion seeking to disqualify the lawyer for the Yanson 4 cited the Code of Professional Responsibility that prohibits a counsel from testifying on behalf of his clients. The Supreme Court justifies the prohibition due to “the difficulty posed upon lawyers by the task of dissociating their relation to their clients as witnesses from that as advocates.”

Rule 130 of the Amended Rules of Court provides that a witness can testify only to those facts in which he has personal knowledge. The Bacolod court finds that “the judicial affidavit of Atty. Fortun would show he has no personal knowledge of the facts he intends to testify.” Also, he falls under none of the categories that might justify exemption from the rule.

The court’s decision upholding Ginette’s motion may be considered a blow to the case the Yanson 4 are trying to build invalidating their own mother’s will and testament. With Fortun barred from testifying on behalf of the four fugitive siblings, there will be no one else to validate their claims about Olivia’s competence.

One of the fugitive siblings – or all of them – will have to come home to stand as witness to their claims about their mother. But there are standing arrest warrants on them. This presents them a bit of a problem.

The hearing on the Yanson 4 appeal is scheduled next month.